Slánský trials

The Slánský trial (officially Proces s protistátním spikleneckým centrem Rudolfa Slánského meaning "Trial of anti-state conspiracy centered around Rudolf Slánský") was a show trial against elements of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) who were thought to have adopted the line of the maverick Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. On 20 November 1952, Rudolf Slánský, General Secretary of the KSČ, and 13 other leading party members, 11 of them Jews, were accused of participating in a Trotskyite-Titoite-Zionist conspiracy and convicted: 11 including Slánský were hanged in Prague on December 3, and three were sentenced to life imprisonment. The state prosecutor at the trial in Prague was Josef Urválek.

The trial was the result of a split within the Communist leadership on the degree to which the state should emulate the Soviet Union, and was part of a Joseph Stalin-inspired purge of "disloyal" elements in the national Communist parties in Central Europe, as well as a purge of Jews from the leadership of Communist parties. Klement Gottwald, president of Czechoslovakia and leader of the Communist Party, feared being purged, and decided to sacrifice Slánský, a longtime collaborator and personal friend who was the second-in-command of the party. The others were picked to convey a clear threat to different groups in the state bureaucracy. A couple of them (Šváb, Reicin) were brutal sadists conveniently added for a more realistic show.

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